In the 1990s and the early 2000s, a new phenomenon generally termed online learning emerged that has
changed the way faculty teach and students learn. As mentioned earlier, millions of students are learning
online, and entire colleges have been “built” that offer the entirety of their academic programs online.
This phenomenon has opened up new approaches and avenues for collecting and processing data on
students and course activities; every instructional transaction can be immediately recorded and added to a
database. Academic administration, which in the past occurred away from the classroom, can now be
integrated very closely with instructional activities and requires close collaboration with the teaching faculty